July Recap!

 Oh wow, lots to say about all that we've done! Last year, a calendar full of beach days and trying to stay sane. This year, a calendar full of activities, and also trying to stay sane (and rested, and hydrated, and not sunburnt.)

The kids had the return to Camp Ford, always a favorite. They did so many great activities with Mimi and Poppy and assistant counselor Jake, including a trip to the water park.

Can you believe Captain Safety let his grandkids go down this slide?!?

Another nearly unbelievable thing - Bob and Nancy came down for a Southern California tour and I went with my kids to Disneyland! I am not a huge fan of Disneyland itself, let alone on a hot July day with kids. But we had a really great day - fourteen hours of riding rides and wandering around. The kids hung in like champs, other than some whining in the various lines (I swear, if I had a dollar for every time I told a kid to leave someone alone, stop touching the lane lines, or climb down from someplace where they weren't supposed to be, I would have had enough money to buy admission, food and parking for all nine of our party.) We brought our Camelbaks and went through almost nine liters of water, for our family of four. We also got totally soaked during our post-lunch Splash Mountain trip, and that cool down I think really helped us make it though (I had to go and wring my shirt out in the bathroom afterwards.) One of the best parts of the day was riding Space Mountain after 9pm, getting off and getting right back into the singles line so that we could go twice in a row. I'm glad I waited until the kids were big enough to want to ride on all of the big coasters, and let Tim, the Disney-lover and more patient parent, take them years ago when they could only do dinky things.

This photo is from when we were waiting in line for the newest Star Wars ride, and I'd told them to get their hands off each other. Ellie told me that Disneyland is where you go to be mad at your family, and Adam told me I make everything worse. And then I laaaaaaaaughed at them. 

We've had some beach days and some good pool days. Ellie and her friend Zoe went to Marine Mammal Camp in Laguna Beach, which they both loved. Monday I brought Amelia with me for pick up, and we had some delicious ice cream and bought great rocks at the Chakra Shack. Then we had a very loud singalong to Olivia Rodrigo in the car. 

We've also turned into the neighborhood house where kids just seem to show up and ask to play, which is fine. Never thought I'd be that mom, or run that house, but it turns out, I'm more maternal than I knew. 

And then the last two weeks of July have been the much anticipated camp weeks. Adam is back at the day camp where both kids have gone for several years, but Ellie aged out and so it was time for SLEEP AWAY CAMP up near Bass Lake/Yosemite. There was a lot of stress and some tears in the lead up to us getting her dropped off, but overall, she was a really brave little doobie. I also think it helps that she and Lexi were going together - I don't know if she would have hung in if sent alone. Leading up to it, she was very concerned about sleeping in a cabin "with strangers" and she wasn't super hot on the church aspects of it all, but when we picked the girls up yesterday they spent the first hour of the drive regaling us with all of the fun they'd had (but when asked, Ellie said that camp was "fine" and that "maybe" she'd go back next year. Okay kid, way to be too cool for school forevermore.)

I mean, looks like an okay time, am I right? Camp allows them to send you whatever snail mail they want, and you can send them either snail mail or little emails, but there's no calls or texts home, so every day was like forensic science, checking the photo albums to catch sight of her and wonder if she was having a good time. Jeff and I drove up together to drop the girls off on the 19th (and then drove back home the same day) but to pick them up, Tim and I drove up on Friday, stayed overnight at Bass Lake to celebrate our 16th wedding anniversary, and then got the girls and drove home in the morning. I'm glad we were there for drop off the first year, but I've already informed them that they're riding the bus next year. 

Adam had two of his best buddies in his pod with him this year, and they all loved Pronto, their counselor. 

They do a lot of the same activities - rock wall climbing, horseback riding, skateboarding, archery, and two beach days. The only downside is that then instead of my exhausted kid being some teenager's problem in the evening, he's my problem. One day he threw a fit about having to drop off his friends after camp instead of having an extended hang out, and then he fell asleep on the car ride home. Most afternoons, Adam was like this:

So now we have two weeks left in our summer. This week we're heading back to Wisconsin, this time to see Grandma Rosie in La Crosse. With all the changes with the Delta variant, there is part of me that feels like we're just slipping in and out before the world is made to lock down again. I cannot wait until the kids are able to get their vaccinations, and I can stop worrying so much about their safety. I'm glad the kids had a summer of relative normalcy, getting to do their activities, see their friends, have new adventures, before we go back to being in our masks and avoiding others.